Hey everyone, ran my third and so far fastest marathon yesterday at York and was delighted to get a championship place for London by dipping under the 2:45 marker.

However for the second time on a marathon at about the 20 mile marker I got some pretty bad stitch in my left side and since this has happened on both my second and third marathons Iím starting to think this is becoming a bit of a limiting factor. I started to feel the stitch around mile 19 and right up to mile 20 I was on pace for a 2:42:30 so the stitch cost me the total dip in pace on the last 10k.

Iíve genuinely never felt pain like it and it took all my effort to get through the last 5k as knew with 2 mile to go I needed 7 min/ĎIKEA to get sub 2:45 and genuinely doubted I would be able to keep running. The pain went from just side stitch to like stitch/stabbing pain around chest and front and had to take my HRM off for last couple miles as it felt constricting.

I never suffer this anywhere else so genuinely believe this is linked directly to the level of effort that put in for a marathon but really not sure how to address it. I eat breakfast 3 hours before, donít think I over hydrate before the race and then on the race course I took in approx 600-700 kcal from 4x gels and approx 1 litre of isotonic drink (evenly spaced). Dno if itís too little fluid, too much fluid/gels? I have a pretty strong stomach usually and donít suffer it in training.

The isotonic? London was Lucozade, yesterday was Asda sports mix so both fructose-sucrose mix I think?

Any link of particular sugars to these? Iíve donít drink sports mix much than in race but have no issues with gels (use high5) so not sure if using just gels and water might be a better way to get the calories and fluid?